1. Describe the stasis in the play: where, when, who, what, etc. in a paragraph. Queen’s Garden covers a series of key periods in Brenda Aoki’s life in California. Brenda is Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Scots and the oldest of seven children. Her dad is the owner of a local pharmacy. She meets and begins to date Kali over the summer.
2. What is the intrusion? The intrusion in Queen’s Garden is when Steve Newcomb kisses Brenda one day after school. When Kali hears, he beats Steve up in class the following morning. Brenda confronts Kali later, berating him for picking a fight with Steve. This argument reveals a conflict of expected futures: Kali wants to marry Brenda but Brenda wants to get out of the Westside and go to college. This breaks the stasis and causes Kali and Brenda to go their separate ways. Along his path away from Brenda, Kali takes a series of actions that inevitably lead to the shoot-out at the end of the play.
3. What is the unique factor? The unique factor that allows the play to unfold is that this is around the time where she meets Kali.
4. What is the dramatic question that should be answered by the end of the play? I think one of the major questions that arise over the course of the play are ‘Will Brenda get out of Westside?’ As the plot progresses, Brenda does attend college for a time, but is ultimately drawn back into the Westside cycle by various things (i.e. Kali, her family, etc.). Although she doesn’t manage to leave Westside, she does become a teacher at the local school in order to make a difference. Hence the question ‘Will she be able to make a difference?’ By the end of the play, it becomes clear that she does not make significant changes; The gang-violence-related deaths of Kali, Smoke, Sherry’s son, and Rosie’s boyfriend make it very clear that the Westside cycle is still present.
5. Provide an illustration of the two kinds of exposition that the play has in it. Most of the type one exposition (that all characters know) is divulged through the narrator (an older, retrospective Brenda). Brenda begins the play with a narrative prologue to set the foundations for the play: that she grew up in L.A., what life was versus is like there, and other details about her family, friends, and background (on herself). An example of the play’s type two exposition (that only one or few of the characters know) is Hai’s story about her family and her sister. Once Brenda is older, she and Hai become roommates and we learn one night that all that Hai has left of her family and life in Vietnam is two blue mugs.
6. Identify the most theatrical moment in the play and of what importance it seems to be. One of the most theatrical moments of Queen’s Garden is the shoot-out in the final scene. Smoke, Kali and their gangs all come to face each other in Aunti Mary’s rose garden. This moment Is very fast pace and full of violence. Brenda narrates the scene in snapshots “BANG! BANG!... Gun shots… men running… trampling the bushes…the flowers”. Her choppy narration highlights the devastation in her voice as she paints a picture of the event. The loud noises, the ‘BANG!’s, woven throughout the scene recreate the chaos, every other word is a curse, and red roses are “falling through the air”. Brenda made this scene the most theatrical because it is the peak of the play, it is the ultimate consequence of the Westside cycle. Essentially, this scene (and the warning message it carries) is arguably the whole point of the play.
7. List some of the themes of the play. Some of the themes in Queen’s Garden are the cyclical nature of bad circumstance, disputes caused by ethnic and social disparity, and entrapment in circumstance.
8. What does the narrator want and what are some obstacles that stand in the way of her getting what she wants? Initially, we see Brenda’s desire to get out of Westside and go to college. She is working against the natural force pushing/pulling her back to her roots and the doubt/opposing desires of others. When she expresses her desire to go to college, Kali and her father vocalize contrary wishes: Kali wants her to stay and marry him and her father believes that getting an education will make her un-marry-able. While she does go to college for a time, Brenda faces some significant obstacles that lead to her eventual return home. On campus, she is constantly being singled out for her ethnic background making her college experience generally uncomfortable. This combined with the draw of her roots, her family back in Westside, cause her to return to L.A. Although she does not overcome the obstacles preventing her from a degree, her desire to get out of Westside persists and re-emerges later on in the play. Later on, we see Brenda facing the social norms of the Westside. Upon returning to Westside, Brenda gets a certificate to teach at the ‘12 O’clock High’ in pursuit of her goal to make a difference/ fight against the Westside cycle (gang violence, teen pregnancy, lacking education, killings etc.). On her first day, Brenda tries to identify with the Westsider students and encourage higher aspirations. However, she’s met with apathy and the realization that her students are part of the Westside cycle already. She continues to battle the Westside norms by taking a student, Rosie, and her baby under her wing. Unfortunately, ‘Bullet’, the father of Rosie’s child, is killed and Rosie blames Brenda. Defeated by the inevitability of the Westside cycle, Brenda decides to leave for San Francisco. Towards the end of the play, Brenda’s desire to save Kali is faced with several obstacles: Kali’s history (involvement in a drug ring, arrest and imprisonment), his grudge against Smoke for abandoning him in prison, and the consequences of turning Smoke in to the DEA. Ultimately, we see Brenda fighting to save Kali from himself. She tries to hide him away with her in San Francisco and help him move on, but over time, Kali begins to drink and deteriorate. Inevitably, his inability to resolve his grudge and Smokes mutual desire for revenge leads to the final shoot-out and their deaths. Ultimately, Brenda is unable to save Kali from the Westside within himself.
9. Describe some possible imagesin the play and how does the title help us understand the play. The title of the play, Queen’s Garden, refers to Aunti Mary’s rose garden, the only rose garden on the Westside. Over the course of the play, symbolic images arise, such as Aunti Mary herself as well as her garden and her roses. At the beginning of the play, Brenda tells us that Aunti Mary is the queen of Westside because the is the only person who could stop a street fight. She is the queen because she can disrupt the violence of the Westside cycle, at least initially. This initial description of Aunti and other instances throughout the play, such as when she forces Smoke and Kali to make up at his 14th birthday, establish her as a symbol of peace and the preserver of bonds. She represents the glue, the familial tie that holds Westsiders together. She is, to some degree able to keep the violence at bay for a time, which is a miracle in Westside. While Aunti Mary acts as a symbol, so does her precious garden. The queen’s garden is where the best and the worst scenes in the play take place. The height of the good times is Kali’s birthday; they dig a pit to roast kalua pig in the middle of the garden. Brenda’s blissful description of that night (the dreamy atmosphere and her first kiss) marks the climactic beginning of the end of the ‘old days’ when “life was simple” and “people were good”. Aunti’s garden is also where the divide between Smoke and Kali comes to a tragic boiling point. The shoot-out between the two opposing sides ultimately destroys the rose garden and is the peak of the play’s dramatic action. Additionally, the roses take on a symbolic meaning towards the end of the play. During the shoot-out in the final scene, the roses are destroyed by the bullets and general fighting. As a result, red rose petals litter the ground and are “falling through the air”. Essentially, the red roses become a motif for blood. In the chaotic description of the violence, it becomes difficult for the audience to distinguish whether the vague ‘red’ that Brenda is describing is blood or the roses. Furthermore, Brenda reveals in her final lines that “every year, some roses still bloom”, implying that the violence and blood shed till goes on.
10. Briefly define the family relationships that are examined in the play. In Queen’s Garden family is an ambiguous term that has a multitude of meanings. As the one-woman play portrays, all of these characters are, in some way, a part of Brenda. Brenda is made up of each of the memories and bonds that she shares with each of them. Brenda has her biological family, her Westside family, Kali, Hai, Sherry. She is the “onesan” of her biological family (the oldest sibling), She is a member of the Westside, she is Kali’s girlfriend, Sherry’s best friend and Hai’s roommate. All of these interpersonal relationships are familial in their own unique way. They are family ‘por vida’, regardless of what happens. In essence, the family relationships that this play examines exist between friends, actual family, and Westsiders.
Queen’s Garden covers a series of key periods in Brenda Aoki’s life in California. Brenda is Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Scots and the oldest of seven children. Her dad is the owner of a local pharmacy. She meets and begins to date Kali over the summer.
2. What is the intrusion?
The intrusion in Queen’s Garden is when Steve Newcomb kisses Brenda one day after school. When Kali hears, he beats Steve up in class the following morning. Brenda confronts Kali later, berating him for picking a fight with Steve. This argument reveals a conflict of expected futures: Kali wants to marry Brenda but Brenda wants to get out of the Westside and go to college. This breaks the stasis and causes Kali and Brenda to go their separate ways. Along his path away from Brenda, Kali takes a series of actions that inevitably lead to the shoot-out at the end of the play.
3. What is the unique factor?
The unique factor that allows the play to unfold is that this is around the time where she meets Kali.
4. What is the dramatic question that should be answered by the end of the play?
I think one of the major questions that arise over the course of the play are ‘Will Brenda get out of Westside?’ As the plot progresses, Brenda does attend college for a time, but is ultimately drawn back into the Westside cycle by various things (i.e. Kali, her family, etc.). Although she doesn’t manage to leave Westside, she does become a teacher at the local school in order to make a difference. Hence the question ‘Will she be able to make a difference?’ By the end of the play, it becomes clear that she does not make significant changes; The gang-violence-related deaths of Kali, Smoke, Sherry’s son, and Rosie’s boyfriend make it very clear that the Westside cycle is still present.
5. Provide an illustration of the two kinds of exposition that the play has in it.
Most of the type one exposition (that all characters know) is divulged through the narrator (an older, retrospective Brenda). Brenda begins the play with a narrative prologue to set the foundations for the play: that she grew up in L.A., what life was versus is like there, and other details about her family, friends, and background (on herself).
An example of the play’s type two exposition (that only one or few of the characters know) is Hai’s story about her family and her sister. Once Brenda is older, she and Hai become roommates and we learn one night that all that Hai has left of her family and life in Vietnam is two blue mugs.
6. Identify the most theatrical moment in the play and of what importance it seems to be.
One of the most theatrical moments of Queen’s Garden is the shoot-out in the final scene. Smoke, Kali and their gangs all come to face each other in Aunti Mary’s rose garden. This moment Is very fast pace and full of violence. Brenda narrates the scene in snapshots “BANG! BANG!... Gun shots… men running… trampling the bushes…the flowers”. Her choppy narration highlights the devastation in her voice as she paints a picture of the event. The loud noises, the ‘BANG!’s, woven throughout the scene recreate the chaos, every other word is a curse, and red roses are “falling through the air”. Brenda made this scene the most theatrical because it is the peak of the play, it is the ultimate consequence of the Westside cycle. Essentially, this scene (and the warning message it carries) is arguably the whole point of the play.
7. List some of the themes of the play.
Some of the themes in Queen’s Garden are the cyclical nature of bad circumstance, disputes caused by ethnic and social disparity, and entrapment in circumstance.
8. What does the narrator want and what are some obstacles that stand in the way of her getting what she wants?
Initially, we see Brenda’s desire to get out of Westside and go to college. She is working against the natural force pushing/pulling her back to her roots and the doubt/opposing desires of others. When she expresses her desire to go to college, Kali and her father vocalize contrary wishes: Kali wants her to stay and marry him and her father believes that getting an education will make her un-marry-able. While she does go to college for a time, Brenda faces some significant obstacles that lead to her eventual return home. On campus, she is constantly being singled out for her ethnic background making her college experience generally uncomfortable. This combined with the draw of her roots, her family back in Westside, cause her to return to L.A. Although she does not overcome the obstacles preventing her from a degree, her desire to get out of Westside persists and re-emerges later on in the play.
Later on, we see Brenda facing the social norms of the Westside. Upon returning to Westside, Brenda gets a certificate to teach at the ‘12 O’clock High’ in pursuit of her goal to make a difference/ fight against the Westside cycle (gang violence, teen pregnancy, lacking education, killings etc.). On her first day, Brenda tries to identify with the Westsider students and encourage higher aspirations. However, she’s met with apathy and the realization that her students are part of the Westside cycle already. She continues to battle the Westside norms by taking a student, Rosie, and her baby under her wing. Unfortunately, ‘Bullet’, the father of Rosie’s child, is killed and Rosie blames Brenda. Defeated by the inevitability of the Westside cycle, Brenda decides to leave for San Francisco.
Towards the end of the play, Brenda’s desire to save Kali is faced with several obstacles: Kali’s history (involvement in a drug ring, arrest and imprisonment), his grudge against Smoke for abandoning him in prison, and the consequences of turning Smoke in to the DEA. Ultimately, we see Brenda fighting to save Kali from himself. She tries to hide him away with her in San Francisco and help him move on, but over time, Kali begins to drink and deteriorate. Inevitably, his inability to resolve his grudge and Smokes mutual desire for revenge leads to the final shoot-out and their deaths. Ultimately, Brenda is unable to save Kali from the Westside within himself.
9. Describe some possible images in the play and how does the title help us understand the play.
The title of the play, Queen’s Garden, refers to Aunti Mary’s rose garden, the only rose garden on the Westside. Over the course of the play, symbolic images arise, such as Aunti Mary herself as well as her garden and her roses.
At the beginning of the play, Brenda tells us that Aunti Mary is the queen of Westside because the is the only person who could stop a street fight. She is the queen because she can disrupt the violence of the Westside cycle, at least initially. This initial description of Aunti and other instances throughout the play, such as when she forces Smoke and Kali to make up at his 14th birthday, establish her as a symbol of peace and the preserver of bonds. She represents the glue, the familial tie that holds Westsiders together. She is, to some degree able to keep the violence at bay for a time, which is a miracle in Westside.
While Aunti Mary acts as a symbol, so does her precious garden. The queen’s garden is where the best and the worst scenes in the play take place. The height of the good times is Kali’s birthday; they dig a pit to roast kalua pig in the middle of the garden. Brenda’s blissful description of that night (the dreamy atmosphere and her first kiss) marks the climactic beginning of the end of the ‘old days’ when “life was simple” and “people were good”. Aunti’s garden is also where the divide between Smoke and Kali comes to a tragic boiling point. The shoot-out between the two opposing sides ultimately destroys the rose garden and is the peak of the play’s dramatic action.
Additionally, the roses take on a symbolic meaning towards the end of the play. During the shoot-out in the final scene, the roses are destroyed by the bullets and general fighting. As a result, red rose petals litter the ground and are “falling through the air”. Essentially, the red roses become a motif for blood. In the chaotic description of the violence, it becomes difficult for the audience to distinguish whether the vague ‘red’ that Brenda is describing is blood or the roses. Furthermore, Brenda reveals in her final lines that “every year, some roses still bloom”, implying that the violence and blood shed till goes on.
10. Briefly define the family relationships that are examined in the play.
In Queen’s Garden family is an ambiguous term that has a multitude of meanings. As the one-woman play portrays, all of these characters are, in some way, a part of Brenda. Brenda is made up of each of the memories and bonds that she shares with each of them. Brenda has her biological family, her Westside family, Kali, Hai, Sherry. She is the “onesan” of her biological family (the oldest sibling), She is a member of the Westside, she is Kali’s girlfriend, Sherry’s best friend and Hai’s roommate. All of these interpersonal relationships are familial in their own unique way. They are family ‘por vida’, regardless of what happens. In essence, the family relationships that this play examines exist between friends, actual family, and Westsiders.